


The Moon in Your Eyes (The Rest of the Universe Between your Teeth)

by Linpatootie



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is very very awkward, Cecil is very very Cecil, First Time, Fluff, M/M, bedsharing (come on were you expecting something else), beware of Cecil's dirty talk, canon-typical weirdness, my headcanons let me show you them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:02:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linpatootie/pseuds/Linpatootie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos struggles. Night Vale gently nudges. Cecil accepts everything and questions nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have this headcanon that the eye in the Night Vale logo, the one with the moon in it, is actually one of Cecil's eyes. Just. Go with it. All the thanks go to my lovely beta Tazigo for betareading this for me and pointing out to me that Americans call the first floor the second floor because I totally spaced on that one what the hell.

Carlos thinks he’s been heading for Night Vale his whole life. As a scientist, words like ‘destiny’ and ‘fate’ always meant very little to him, merely vague concepts no one could ever put in any kind of certifiable context, but he’s woken up twice now with those words scribbled across his forehead (and with what he is unable to tell, as pens and markers are still strictly outlawed) so he takes that as a clue and ponders them for a while. 

Figuring things out was what he did. As a kid, he’d perform tests on whatever he could find using a chemistry set his parents bought him for his birthday. He was the only one in biology class who did not balk at dissecting a frog. He was always breaking things down, building them back up, and inevitably getting frustrated when he’d explained everything away.

He couldn’t do that to Night Vale. He’d tried. He’d honestly tried, and just when he thought he had a hold on it a massive pyramid appeared in town or zombie children shuffled into his lab to hand him a note requesting if he’d maybe be so kind to stop performing tests on the pink stuff that kept seeping out from under his fridge because he is this close to accidentally ripping the space-time continuum and that always leaves such a mess to clean up afterwards. 

While his coworkers all inevitably left, went screaming for the hills, he stayed because he loved it. Even with the danger, and the madness, and having to learn to live without Wheaties, he knew in his heart that this, this inexplicable place, was what he had been yearning for. An unsolvable puzzle. Just when he figured something out something else would explode in a mess of viscera and grape jelly and off he went again – and he wished he was being metaphorical about the viscera and the grape jelly. 

So destiny, and fate, and a New Jersey boy winding up in a desert town and wondering why it took him so long to get there. Nothing does continuous and scientifically impossible surprises like Night Vale. Even now, when he doesn’t actually expect his broccoli to explode as he’s cutting it up but it does anyway.

He should probably look into that some time. Exploding vegetables. That’s a new one.

There’s a lot of smoke. More than there should be, actually, and it takes him a moment to realize it’s a bright, pulsating neon green and makes his eyes water and, oh. That’s no good. He runs, holding his breath, down the stairs, bursts out his front door and onto the streets, and stands there coughing loudly for a good ten minutes. Tendrils of green smoke slither out the door before he shuts it, and he watches as it licks against his windows on the second floor like a living thing requesting kindly to be let out.

“Oh, dear. That’ll take a good two or three days of airing out, that’s for sure,” a cheerful voice pipes in from his left, but when he turns all he encounters is a vague sensation of static and some vertigo. He knows what that implies by now, and knows it’s better not to voice it. He sighs, and wonders how lethal the stuff is and how much of it he just inhaled. 

The waning moon hangs overhead, like a lopsided toothy grin. He looks up at it, feeling dejected and probably just a touch too sorry for himself, and wonders what he’s going to do now. He’s got nothing on him except the clothes he’s wearing, it’s late, and Night Vale is not the best place to go wandering after dark, especially if you’re a scientist whose best self-defense skill boils down to ‘scream very loudly and hope for the best’. He doesn’t even have his car keys, his car sitting locked and useless by the curb. He has his phone on him, at least, stuffed in the breast pocket of his red flannel shirt.

His contact list is stupidly short and outdated, and has more numbers for take-out places than he cares to admit. There are few numbers on there he might possibly call for help, and only one very obviously jumping out at him. Literally – one of the numbers is highlighted in neon, blinking rapidly, and Carlos didn’t know his phone could even do that and tries not to think about why a mobile telephone is trying to convince him to call Cecil.

He hesitates. It’s not that he doesn’t want to call Cecil. It is, in fact, that he wants to call him very, very much. Carlos isn’t good at this, never has been, and while he knows that even just saying that Cecil is into him is something of an understatement, the whole situation is just so awkward. Cecil thinks he’s perfect. Carlos knows he isn’t, and keeps on waiting for the ball to drop. Carlos also thinks Cecil is, to put it bluntly, the greatest and most unfathomable thing to ever be poured into supposedly human form, and that just adds to his overall feeling of inadequacy.

It’s something he can’t analyze or explain in numbers and graphs, and this time not in Night Vale’s usual exasperating fashion but in an anxiety-inducing anguish entirely Carlos’ own.

His thumb hovers over Cecil’s number and he recites in his head what he would say, feeling himself growing warmer at the thought. A low growl drifts across the pavement and he turns sharply, only to see a friendly-looking little old lady, her hair in rollers, walking a particularly fluffy dachshund.

He doesn’t think the growl came from the dachshund. He wipes an anxious thumb across his phone and waits with bated breath for Cecil to pick up.

“Yeeees?” Cecil picks up and Carlos can hear the smile in his voice. It makes his stomach twist uncomfortably, an explosion of endorphins rocketing through his system in a way he doesn’t think can be healthy.

“Cecil. It’s Carlos. I’m sorry for calling this late, but I’m calling for personal reasons.” Oh, God. He doesn’t know why he says that. He _always_ says that, and could just about hit himself every time he does, but it flops out his mouth before he can stop it. He hops from one foot to the other, side-eying the lady ever-approaching. The dachshund shrugs apologetically. 

“I had a little accident. In the lab! I don’t mean… I had an accident in the lab. I’m more or less locked out and can’t get back in. I think what’s in there now is kind of toxic.”  
And possibly alive. The green smoke waves cheerfully at him from behind the window. 

“Oh, dear! Are you alright?” Cecil asks.  
“Oh, I’m fine.” _’For now’_ , he thinks, but the lady with the dog shuffles past and he watches them go. “I was just wondering. Um. If I could. Well. I can’t go back inside and I have pretty much nothing on me.” He can’t get it out his mouth. _’Can I please come over’_ , he thinks loudly, wondering if somehow Night Vale will ensure Cecil understands.

Cecil does understand, though to be fair, that may not be Night Vale as much as just Cecil having a brain and understanding what it means when someone calls you late at night to tell you they can’t get into their house.  
“You’re more than welcome here! Do you want me to come pick you up? I’ll just go put my shoes on and –“  
“No no, that’s fine, I’ll walk,” Carlos interrupts him.  
“Are you sure? It’d be no problem at all.” 

Carlos knows that. He simply doesn’t want to, already feeling like a big dweeb for having to call Cecil to ask him if he can maybe crash on his couch. Or somewhere else. The somewhere else just makes him nervous all over again, and he hangs up his phone with sweaty hands before the conversation is actually over. Cecil was saying something, and he stares at his phone and wonders why there’s not an asteroid plummeting from the sky right now to just put him out of his awkward misery. 

The green smoke dances behind his window. It looks worryingly like it’s attempting to Gangnam Style. Carlos shudders, and sets off towards Cecil’s at a brisk pace. 

Cecil’s apartment building is gray and square and sits near the dog park looking ominously normal. He’s never actually been there before. He can’t even exactly recall how it is he knows where Cecil lives at all, but he walked straight to it like he’s been going there every day of his life. He even knows which door is Cecil’s, his feet carrying him effortlessly down the hall. 

It’s a normal door. It’s a grayish brown door, in a grayish brown hallway, with grayish brown light casting friendly shadows. He raises his hand to knock and his heart flies up his throat and stops him. They’ve been on _one_ date. It had been nice, he had been nervous, and he had kissed Cecil goodbye in an unbelievable surge of courage and confidence and hadn’t actually seen him since. They’d spoken over the phone, they’d texted, Cecil had put some random video of kittens climbing up a guy’s legs on his Facebook wall, but he hadn’t actually _seen_ him. He doesn’t know why it makes him nervous, but then again this is Night Vale, and the possibility that Cecil randomly grew a second head or aged about thirty years in a week is, actually, fairly reasonable.

The door opens, his fist still hovering over the wood, and Cecil stands in the doorway looking equal parts excited and worried, still the same age, still sporting just the one – albeit very lovely - head. He’s wearing pink flannel pajama pants and a gray t-shirt and looks so cuddly Carlos almost wants to cry because of it. Almost, because he gets immediately distracted by the tattoos swirling down Cecil’s arms. He’s surely seen Cecil’s bare arms before – Night Vale is, after all, a desert town, and Cecil does wear short-sleeved shirts – but can’t recall ever seeing tattoos. 

“Carlos! I thought I heard something. Are you alright?” Cecil flutters out the door, all hands, then stops himself and shrinks back in. He does that sometimes. It’s as if his enthusiasm, the unbridled affection with which he speaks about Carlos on the radio, takes him over but he realizes at the very last second it might be unwanted.

It’s not unwanted, but Carlos doesn’t have the words to let him know that. 

Cecil beckons him in. Carlos feels a bit funny stepping over the threshold, like he’s crossing some barrier into a different dimension. Metaphorically funny this time, not Night Vale funny. The first impression he gets from Cecil’s small, lived in apartment is _nest_. It’s very full. It’s very colorful. It’s all done up in reds and purples and oranges, there’s a couch the size of a small boat nearly hidden under an avalanche of soft pillows, and Carlos would have expected a lot of things but not this. 

The television is on, showing a game show that looks so dated Carlos can’t even begin to imagine what channel would be showing it, and there’s a large, framed picture on the wall. It’s a black and white aerial shot of what is clearly Night Vale, although the picture has to be old. The dog park is missing, for one, and there is a large temple of sorts right in the middle that Carlos knows for sure isn’t there anymore.

“Isn’t it lovely,” Cecil coos, following his line of sight. “It used to be at the station, but we redecorated and station management wanted to get rid of it. I took it home. My Night Vale, I just love it. I like to look at it and pretend I’m floating above the town, keeping an eye on it like some malevolent deity. But oh, I’m being a horrible host! Would you like something to drink?”

Carlos would very much, and Cecil hurries into a small, crowded kitchen that is so normal-looking Carlos finds it oddly suspicious. “What would you like? I have this nice chamomile tea but that isn’t everybody’s cup of… well. Or I have juice. Or milk. Or a brandy maybe, would you like that? I think I’ll have one.”

Carlos doesn’t have to answer. Cecil comes back with two brandies, and he accepts it gratefully before sinking deeply into the entirely too fluffy couch. 

“Now, what happened at your lab, exactly?”  
Carlos makes a face he knows Cecil probably won’t be able to read. “My broccoli exploded.”

“Well of course it did, silly. What were you doing handling broccoli in the first place?”  
“Making dinner?”  
Cecil looks horrified. “Did you at least hum the appropriate hymn to it as you prepared it?”

Carlos has to admit that no, he didn’t, and Cecil looks both exasperated and endeared. “Oh, Carlos. You can’t just go and eat broccoli from the Green Market. If you don’t observe the proper rituals... well, I suppose you’ve figured out what happens. It’ll be fine, though, the spirits usually evaporate in a day or two.”

Spirits. Sentient neon green smoke invoked by cutting broccoli you haven’t sung to. Carlos doesn’t even know where to begin scientifically explaining it, and downs his brandy in one go.

“So I… suppose you’ll need… a place to stay?” The question comes out well-measured, careful, with a dash of hope near the end. Carlos stares at the bottom of his empty glass and wonders why the universe hates him.  
“I don’t want to be presumptuous,” he says, sounding more apologetic than he likes. “But if I could maybe crash on your couch...” And hope it doesn’t swallow him alive in his sleep. The thing sure is big enough to.

“As I said, you’re more than welcome in my home. Or – anywhere. Really. More than welcome.” Cecil goes a touch pink and Carlos wonders if he does that on purpose. Throw in an innuendo, then make it look accidental and almost innocent. Blushing on purpose would be a pretty neat trick, though, but he notices the tattoos on Cecil’s arms have definitely started to inch upwards into his sleeves and nothing would surprise Carlos at this point.

“Wait,” Cecil says, shooting up with sudden concern. “If you were preparing dinner, does that mean you haven’t eaten yet? Carlos! You must be starving!” 

Not really, actually. Broccoli exploding under your nose really cinches one’s appetite, as it turns out. “I’m fine. I wasn’t – my dinner blew up, really, I’m good.”

But Cecil is already up again, flurrying into his kitchen on gray-socked feet. “I don’t have much in the house but I can make you a sandwich? Peanut butter jelly? Gluten free bread, of course... I have grape jelly, that’s okay, isn’t it?”  
Carlos winces. “Fine.”

There’s still something to eating a sandwich Cecil prepared especially for him, though. Even if it’s just peanut butter jelly, with the jelly being as always a touch questionable. Cecil watches him as he eats, which also qualifies as a touch questionable, and Carlos nearly inhales the sandwich trying to get it over with and smiles and thinks he can pretty much taste that secret ingredient of love he’s fairly certain Cecil put in there.

He licks some remaining crumbs off his thumb, and smiles at Cecil who’s looking at him as if Carlos were a Youtube puppy eating a bowl of ice cream. “Thank you,” he says.  
“No problem. Absolutely none at all.” Cecil tucks a strand of hair the color of the sky on a rainy fall day behind his ear and has the audacity to look bashful. Carlos has marveled at the color of Cecil’s hair before. Gray, light gray, almost silvery in certain light, but Cecil really is genuinely too young to be all-out gray yet so he must dye it. Still, there’s no roots showing, no traces of this being anything other than natural, and Carlos is reminded of old campfire stories about people going gray after seeing horrible things and wonders just what growing up in a place like Night Vale does to a person.

“I was really happy when you called me tonight. I was just thinking of you when my phone rang,” Cecil confesses and Carlos wonders. His phone basically ordered him to call Cecil. He wouldn’t really put it above this place to simultaneously cause Cecil to think of him, and wonders if whatever is powering this town is somehow rooting for the two of them. It’s about as romantic as he’d ever allow himself to get.

Carlos puts down the plate, holds out his arm, and as his heart pounds so loudly he fears it might do permanent damage to his sternum, he beckons. “Come here.”  
Cecil’s face goes slack, then lights up, and he sidles neatly into Carlos’ side. He’s all limbs ,legs folded up, elbows tucked in, and he presses his face into Carlos’ collarbone and Carlos _knows_ that means he can now probably feel Carlos’ heart still thumping a loud, nervous rhythm. To his credit he says nothing, not even when his hand wanders right up to Carlos’ chest and lingers there, carefully, as if Carlos might shoo him off at any point. 

“I hope you don’t think I made up the broccoli thing as an excuse,” Carlos says. “To come here. To… well. To come here.”  
Cecil puffs out a voiceless laugh across the flannel of his shirt. “I don’t think that. You don’t need an excuse, anyway.”  
“Oh.”

Cecil is nuzzling his shirt, and Carlos can’t decide whether he’s comfortable or not. He thinks he might be, even if he’s kind of warm and twitchy and his heart is _still_ beating too fast. He wonders what the hell was in that grape jelly. Cecil looks up at him, cheek still very much pressed against Carlos’ shoulder, and smiles.

“You kissed me, last time. Should I take the initiative now?” He smirks at him and Carlos briefly ponders the nature of interpersonal chemistry and whether scientists are usually prone to weaknesses concerning flirty radio hosts.  
“Yes, please,” he says.

Cecil doesn’t seem to care that that came out oddly polite, because he simply sits up, sets his glasses neatly on the coffee table, leans back in and manages to fit their faces together perfectly on the first try. No wobbly lips, no teeth clashing, just a perfect meeting of closed mouths and one of Cecil’s long-fingered hands stretching out on the side of Carlos’ face. He smells of brandy and, for some reason, vanilla, and Carlos slides a hand onto Cecil’s waist and Cecil makes the sweetest, deepest sound Carlos ever heard a human being make.

Cecil opens his mouth, Carlos slips the tip of his tongue between his lips, encounters a row of very sharp teeth ,and it hits him instantly that, nope, he’s actually _not_ heard a human being make that noise at all. He shudders and deepens the kiss and is stunned by how very little he cares, what with Cecil smelling so nice and curling into him like it’s the only thing he was ever put on this Earth to do. 

They kiss for a long time. Carlos is intrigued by how very real Cecil is, like he’s the only thing he’s ever really been _sure_ of, warm and pliant under his hands and mouth. Cecil is so willing, too. He’s giving off more signals than Carlos knows how to process, so he just keeps kissing him, and Cecil keeps kissing him back, and he thinks that at some point one of them should get tired or thirsty or something but he feels they might just keep on going until the end of days and be fine with that. 

One of Cecil’s legs winds up across his lap, one of Carlos’ hands up Cecil’s t-shirt. The skin of his back is smooth, soft, and Carlos feels the nubs of his spine and the way it twists and moves as Cecil continuously shifts his hips, shuffling closer. The hand previously alongside Carlos’ face moves into his hair, his thumb on the outer shell of his ear, and the entirely-too-sharp teeth catch on Carlos’ lips. 

“Tell me you’re sleeping in my bed with me. Please.” The words are barely a whisper but are so hopeful they make Carlos dizzy.  
“I can’t get enough of you,” Carlos says, and thinks that wasn’t quite what he was going for. Okay. Trying again. “I don’t want to move things too fast.” 

“Now there’s a contradiction,” Cecil says, and he pulls back. Carlos regrets everything he’s ever done in his life. “You’ve known me for over a year. We’re not exactly rushing, are we? Not that I expect... oh God, what a horrible thing to say. Forget that. I mean – I mean. Like. I am not expecting sexual favors from you in return for me opening up my home to you!”

Right. Only Cecil’s train of thought would wind up at that station. Carlos thinks this ought to be easier, at their ages, with their history, with this burgeoning romance of theirs being the only shockingly normal thing in a world of explosive vegetables and pterodactyls. 

He smiles, puts his thumb on Cecil's upper lip and gently pushes it upwards. Nothing unusual, normal white teeth in a normal pink mouth. Carlos knows what he felt earlier and doesn't know how to explain it. Cecil looks confused but smiles, worries his lips against Carlos' thumb, and Carlos pulls him close again and presses his face into Cecil's neck. 

"You don’t need to put a disclaimer after everything you say to me. I know how you feel about me. I do listen to your radio show, you know."

As if Carlos could not listen, not since his team subtly pointed out to him one day that that sinister yet peppy radio host kept gushing about him on air. He wouldn't believe them at first, especially because during the first few broadcasts he listened to Cecil kept neatly to the news, but inevitably Cecil yielded to his emotions and off he went. Once the mortifying embarrassment faded Carlos figured it was quite flattering and more than a little intriguing, and little by little he found himself listening to the show plainly _hoping_ Cecil would mention him because, oh, his voice sounds so lovely wrapped around Carlos' name.

He hadn’t expected to end up here though, with Cecil half across his lap on a stupidly fluffy couch surrounded by pillows and doilies. He hadn’t expected this to ever be more than just another Night Valean quirk.

“I don’t know how you feel about me, though. Well. Maybe a little bit. But I don’t know if you really do or if I just hope so much I’ve made myself believe,” Cecil says. He’s talking into Carlos’ hair, which tells Carlos he doesn’t want to look at him as he says this. He gets that. He’s quite grateful to not have to look at Cecil’s face when he answers, either.

“I feel a lot of things about you, all at once. A part of me wants to run with it and curl up inside your shirt and stay there and another part of me just gets really nervous.” His palms are sweating. One hand is resting on Cecil’s knee and he wonders if he can feel it, the heat radiating through the soft, worn cotton of his pajama pants. 

“That’s. That’s really cute.” One of his hands convulsively clutches the back of Carlos’ shirt. “Carlos! That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me!” And he’s hugging him, tightly, pressing his mouth against Carlos’ ear. “I wouldn’t mind you curled up inside my shirt, though,” he adds, a purr of an afterthought that makes Carlos shiver in a way he can’t decide is pleasant or not. 

“Good,” he says, his voice a dry burble in the back of his throat.  
“We live on a fragile glass marble hurtling through the black void of time and space at hundreds of miles per hour. Such a miracle that in that frail, meaningless existence we still find moments as beautiful as these for ourselves,” Cecil reflects, and Carlos finds himself filled with existential angst he’d rather have avoided for the evening but which he thinks he best get used to, if he’s looking for a life with Cecil in it. He wraps an arm around Cecil’s shoulder and squeezes him, lightly, just once. 

Cecil remains where he is, warm, solid, and it takes Carlos a little while to notice he is, actually, watching whatever is on television. That’s okay. Watching TV, curled up on a couch together – Carlos can handle that. Even if he still has no idea what it is Cecil is watching, and why it looks like it was filmed in 1986. 

A lady on the screen, wearing a blue sweater with a cat on it and glasses so large they threaten to eat her whole face, has apparently won a microwave and is having the time of her life with it. Carlos doesn’t think he’s seen anyone that happy with a microwave. He also notes Cecil doesn’t appear to own one, as confirmed by a quick glance over Cecil’s head into his kitchen. 

He doesn’t know why all this matters, but it does. It matters that Cecil likes good brandy. It matters that he watches old game shows on a small television set, in an apartment decorated with more colors than Carlos can name. It matters he’s wearing gray socks on narrow feet, that one of those feet is resting casually against the side of Carlos’ thigh, his knee across Carlos’ lap and his heart beating solidly against the side of Carlos’ ribcage. He wonders briefly if Cecil can see the TV alright with his glasses not on his face, but he seems to do fine and Carlos doesn’t want to spoil the moment by asking.

He takes Cecil’s hand, resting on his shoulder, curls his fingers around the base of Cecil’s thumb. Cecil’s skin is an indeterminate shade of desert-tan, his fingernails neat and short. Carlos is met with the need to kiss his knuckles, all of them, one by one, but he doesn’t do it.  
“You don’t mind, do you?” Cecil asks softly, and Carlos hums a soft no. He’s not quite sure what Cecil is referring to but he’s sure he does the exact opposite of mind, whatever the word for that is. He’s also sure Cecil would know the word, but doesn’t want to ask. 

The game show lasts entirely too long. Carlos isn’t sure, but at least three of the contestants appear to die slow agonizing deaths halfway through, and there’s a weird interval where the host stares into the camera for fifteen minutes with his one functioning eye and hums ominously.

“What channel is this?” he asks after a while.  
“Fox.”  
“Ah.”

He can’t keep track of it and just gives up after a while, allowing himself to be fully distracted by the living, breathing man now drawing lines on his shirt with a distracted index finger. The broccoli long forgotten, the reason for him showing up here just a vague, unimportant detail, he wonders about the passing of time in Night Vale and whether he could slow it if he just wished really hard.

He probably could. He doesn’t think he should chance it.

The show ends with a blood-curdling scream and the screen going black. Cecil gives a content, bone-melting sigh, pressing his face into the fabric of Carlos’ shirt before pushing himself up and offering Carlos a bleary smile.  
“We should probably go to sleep,” he says. 

“Yes. Right.”  
“I mean, it’s late. Dark. You know what the city council says about staying up late!”  
He doesn’t, and he usually does stay up late and would rather not know why that’s considered a bad idea by the city council. 

“Should I… I’ll make up a bed for you. On the couch.” Cecil is already standing up and Carlos feels cold and alone so quickly it’s ridiculous. The couch is still warm from where Cecil had been sitting, for crying out loud, and it can’t possibly be healthy to grow this attached to a person this quickly.

Still, though.

“You don’t want me…? I mean. You said earlier I could sleep in your bed.” Actually he practically begged him, pretty-please and all, but Carlos can hardly get this much out and it’s close enough.  
Cecil flushes so sharply Carlos wonders how he keeps from keeling over.

“Really? Because you could. Because that’d be nice. I mean.” He squeezes his eyes shut and sighs loudly. “God, Cecil, talk like a normal person. Okay. Starting over. That would be nice, please come into my bed. No, wait, that doesn’t sound right either.”

Carlos laughs, struggles up from the couch and puts his hands on Cecil’s shoulders. “Breathe, before you hurt yourself.” Good advice for the both of them, actually.  
Cecil smiles, nods, and shrugs. Carlos’ hands move up and down along with Cecil’s shoulders. “You want to borrow a t-shirt or something, to sleep in?”  
“You have anything that would fit?” 

Cecil is taller, but Carlos is wider, stockier, more of him in the shoulder and chest. Cecil nods, though, disappears into what Carlos supposes is his bedroom, and comes back out with an honest-to-God Night Vale Community Radio t-shirt. “I have like a box of these. One size fits all, except one size didn’t really fit anyone but for this one intern named Gareth. Poor Gareth, may he rest in peace.” 

Carlos knows better than to ask. He’s heard Cecil’s recount the demise of far too many promising young interns in the time he’s spent in Night Vale. Cecil shows him into a tiny bathroom, tells him to ignore the scorpions nesting in the corner, and even supplies him with a new toothbrush still in its cardboard-and-plastic packaging. 

Carlos eyes the scorpions as Cecil turns out of the bathroom. One of them waves at him. He hesitates, waves back, and warily starts to undress himself.

The shirt doesn’t actually fit him. It’s too large, hanging off his shoulders, long enough to nearly be a dress. Carlos wonders at the giant these were made for, and finds himself wondering in horror about how big intern Gareth must have been to fit into these. Best not to ask, best just not to ask

He washes his face, brushes his teeth. Cecil uses that weird pink salty toothpaste and it takes Carlos a moment to adjust, and that just leads to a whole other kind of self awareness where, apparently, the scorpions doing what appears to be a modern dance routine to try and ask him if they could borrow fifty bucks is a-okay but non-minty toothpaste choices are just too much.

He apologetically informs the scorpions he doesn’t have any money on him, and slinks out of the bathroom again. Cecil turned off all the lights in the living room, now just a light shining through the open door of the bedroom, and Carlos needs a moment. He’s not sure what he needs it _for_ , just that he needs it, so he takes it and takes a few deep breaths. 

Cecil’s bedroom is ridiculously calm, especially when compared to the explosion of stuff and color that is his living area. The walls are a pale blue. His bed is simple, decked out in equally pale blue sheets, and on it is Cecil now in just the gray t-shirt and a stripy pair of boxers, reading a book with a big, cheerful ‘municipally approved!!’ sticker on the front. Carlos isn’t sure what warranted the second exclamation mark, but he appreciates the sentiment. 

A tattoo perched prettily on Cecil’s calf slithers out of sight as Carlos steps in. _Nice legs_ , Carlos thinks, _nice everything, actually_ , and Cecil sits up and smiles at him.

“I’ll just go brush my teeth, be right back,” he says, putting the book on his nightstand and slipping out the room. There are more books on his nightstand, next to an alarm clock and a scattered set of bloodstones, and Carlos itches for a notepad and a pen – no matter how illicit – so he might write these things down. They feel important and major, and he wants to take notes and pictures and fill book after book. 

He has no notepad, he certainly has no pen, and he’s just an overly awkward guy standing in Cecil’s bedroom unsure what side of the bed to take. Cecil was on the right just now, so he hopes it’s okay for him to take the left, and he has honestly been in bed with someone before this and oh God why is he making such a big deal out of nothing. He stubbornly pulls back the sheets, get into bed, lies down.

The entire bed smells like Cecil and whatever he was trying to resolve to do just now melts away in a flurry of endorphins and other assorted little happy things. Cecil’s bed. Cecil in his stripy boxers. The tattoo on Cecil’s calf, the pile of what appear to be literary thrillers on his nightstand, even the aftertaste of his hideous toothpaste, and Carlos half wonders if his broccoli exploded on purpose just to get him here and he’s now accusing broccoli of having long-term goals involving his love life and that’s just no good.

Cecil comes back, grinning in a way Carlos can only describe as deranged. He hovers by his nightstand, making a few complicated hand movements over the bloodstones, soundlessly mouthing a few words Carlos doesn’t catch, checks under the bed, takes his glasses off and sets them on the nightstand with the arms neatly folded, then gets into bed with a contented sigh.

And there it is. The brand new reality of their bodies being in the same space of a bed, close but not touching, and Carlos does nothing for what feels like about three years. That is when Cecil actually honest-to-God giggles, the tension breaks, and Carlos stops thinking and scoots closer.  
“Hi,” Cecil murmurs, turning into him, and Carlos presses a kiss to his forehead.

They lay quietly for a while, in the cold light of Cecil’s bedside lamp. Carlos feels silly in his oversized black t-shirt, out of tune with the rest of the room, but Cecil is relaxed and warm and has the sweetest little private smile on his face.

"Your tattoos are moving,” Carlos points out, his voice soft and a touch lazy.  
"Yes. They do like you, I promise, but they're usually kind of shy."

Sentient tattoos. Sentient, _shy_ tattoos, even, Carlos doesn't know why he's still surprised. He watches as a blue-black tendril curls gracefully up Cecil’s arm, disappearing into his sleeve, only to peek out again on the other side of his arm. 

"Can you feel them do that?"  
"They're on me, Carlos, of course I can feel them."  
"What does it feel like?"  
"Oh, I don't know. Like something brushing very lightly over my skin."

Carlos places two fingers on Cecil's upper arm. The dark swirls skitter away, then slowly, slowly inch back, curiously, like a skittish kitten, reaching out to his fingers.

"How many of them have you got?"  
Cecil leans closer and smiles, a sly, seductive curve of his mouth. There are definitely sharp teeth in that smile this time, bright white, and more than there ought to be. "Oh, lots. Want to see?" 

Carlos can’t think anything at all for a few seconds, too transfixed by the notion that he’s genuinely in bed with a man with teeth like a shark and tattoos that flow across his skin like oil spills. He wants all of that. He wants to kiss those teeth, he wants to try and catch those tattoos on his tongue like snowflakes, he wants to take all of Cecil’s idiosyncrasies and make love to them. 

“Can I?” he says, and Cecil hooks a finger under the hem of his t-shirt and slowly, teasingly, drags it up over his torso. Carlos follows the movement with his eyes, takes in the expanse of skin, the shape of his stomach, his chest, the hair concentrated on his chest and trailing down to his belly button so light it’s nearly see-through. There are, indeed, lots of tattoos. Tribal-like swirls and stripes, figures that might be flowers or spiders, and they shudder and scatter across his skin as they’re exposed to the air.

Cecil wriggles out his shirt, tosses it aside, and Carlos puts both hands flat on his chest and watches in utter awe as not only the tattoos react to his touch but Cecil does too, shivering and breaking out in perfect gooseflesh.

“You’re amazing,” Carlos says before he can catch himself. “Just amazing.”  
“Carlos!” Cecil breathes, and only Cecil could make a sound like that and still have the exclamation mark still very much present. 

“Would you turn over for me?” It’s an innocent question, honestly fuelled by nothing but Carlos’ desire to see the tattoos he’s sure to find on Cecil’s back, but Cecil throws him the most lovely mock-scandalized look and smiles brilliantly at him.  
“Carlos! So forward!”  
“Oh, just roll over already,” Carlos mutters, grinning, and Cecil obliges with a laugh and something of a wink. His back is strong, the back of a man in his very prime, and his tattoos stretch and compliment him perfectly. There’s an eye, tattooed right between his shoulder blades atop a simple pyramid design, and it blinks at him.

Well, okay. Carlos leans in and kisses it and Cecil gasps into his pillow. Oh, just much too much to handle. In a surge of what Carlos supposes is pure lust and possibly, probably love, he sits up and straddles him, Cecil’s firm buttocks under his thighs, and runs his hands down Cecil’s back.

“Yes,” Cecil whispers, arching prettily, and Carlos isn’t entirely sure what he’s doing but it seems to be working for him. He feels the muscles in Cecil’s back, his ribs, his spine, touches lightly, then firmly, then lightly, and watches the tattoos undulate and pulse. Cecil clings to his pillow and pushes his buttocks up in a way he’s sure Cecil thinks is subtle but which really isn’t. 

Carlos hesitates, then yanks his tent of a t-shirt over his head and tosses it aside. He feels awkward, lumpy, entirely too aware of the dark hair covering his chest, sprinkled down the back of his neck and his shoulders, but when he leans close and presses his naked chest to Cecil’s naked back Cecil genuinely _moans_ and that, as it turns out, it something the Voice of Night Vale is very, very good at.

“Please,” Cecil groans into his pillow.  
Carlos licks at his shoulder blade, trailing a tattoo that slips away, comes back, slips away again. “Please, what?”  
“Let me turn over? Please? I really need to kiss you.” The words are said with a gorgeous urgency, and Carlos feels them in every bone in his body. 

He rolls his hips, letting Cecil feel how hard he is, and Cecil squeals and pushes back into him and mumbles something about unfairness that Carlos only half catches. “I don’t know what I want to do with you exactly, but I know I want to do it a lot. Amazing, Cecil, just… amazing,” Carlos says softly, his lips just behind Cecil’s right ear, and Cecil writhes and appears to be giggling and Carlos nearly tells him he loves him.

Nearly. He catches the words before they tumble tenderly but entirely too eager from between his teeth, pulls them back, swallows them to keep them safely inside for the time being. He needs to adjust to the reality of them and knows he’ll hate himself for letting them out before he’s sure he really means them, but he still _feels_ them with an intensity he thinks should perhaps be frightening but which just makes him feel giddy. 

Cecil is apparently done waiting for permission and turns, nearly throwing Carlos off him as he does. Carlos maintains his balance, is now very much straddling Cecil’s lap, and Cecil sits up and pulls him in and kisses him deeply. Sharp teeth, a lot of tongue, Cecil’s hands in his hair and Carlos rolls his hips and grinds their cocks together through the cotton of their boxers and Cecil sobs into his mouth. 

“Perfect. Perfect Carlos,” Cecil mutters, his lips catching and dragging across Carlos’ jaw. His hands drag down Carlos’ back, cup his ass, pushes them together again and Carlos laughs soundlessly.  
“I want you so much. All of you. I want you to fuck me, you don’t even know, I want you to just hold me down and grind into me. I bet you’re so good at it,” Cecil continues, his voice a low murmur across Carlos’ skin, and the last thing he’d have expected Cecil to be is a dirty talker and it takes him aback for a moment. “I want to suck your dick, taste you… can I do that, Carlos, please?” 

It takes him another moment to mutter a stunned ‘okay?’, and at least he’s happy he didn’t go with an overly polite ‘yes please, thank you’ because _that_ would have been weird.

Cecil grins, all but lifts him off his lap and rolls him onto the mattress. His teeth are sharp, so sharp, and Carlos wonders what it says about him that he really does want those near his genitals. He thinks it might be the same sort of urge that drives people to jump out of airplanes or eat Japanese pufferfish. What if something bad comes of it. What if it _doesn’t_. 

Cecil reaches and flicks the light on his nightstand off. Carlos is grateful for it – he was feeling exposed and awkward, Cecil staring at him with that hunger in his eyes, and the darkness provides him with a kind of cover he feels safer in. Cecil hooks his fingers under the waistband of his boxers and swiftly yet gently pulls them down and now Carlos is naked and hard, his skin warm and tingling.

Cecil looks up at him and then, for a moment, Carlos can’t breathe. “Oh my God.”

His eyes are glowing. At first Carlos thinks it’s a reflection, the light from the waning moon reflecting a perfect crescent shape in Cecil’s dark eyes, as if they were still ponds in some magical forest. But human eyes can’t do that, and the curtains are shut, and the shining slivers in Cecil’s eyes are no reflection and the only conclusion Carlos can draw is that, yes, the moon is _genuinely_ in his boyfriend’s eyes. He wonders how he never noticed it. He wonders if they’ll change along with the moon up in the sky. He wonders if he’ll be able to chart lunar cycles in Cecil’s eyes and oh my God he doesn’t think anyone on the planet has ever been this deeply in love with anyone ever.

“Amazing,” he breathes, and Cecil looks confused for a moment in the gray darkness, then leans close and kisses him, open-mouthed, wet. Carlos runs his hands through Cecil’s hair, holds him there as he kisses him back. Cecil has a hand on his chest, over his heart, and Carlos knows he’s doing that so he can feel Carlos’ heart beat its crazy love-struck rhythm.

Cecil breaks the kiss, ends it with a peck on the corner of Carlos’ mouth and little noise of desperation and lust, and thrusts himself down Carlos’ body. Carlos is very naked, and very aroused, and Cecil wastes absolutely no time being coy or bashful or remotely as modest as he’s been before and takes a firm hold of Carlos’ penis.

“Oh, you have a nice, thick cock,” he says, and Carlos can see those sharp teeth in that sharp grin. “I’m going to suck it so hard. I want you so much. You’re perfect, so perfect.” That voice, and those words, and Carlos isn’t sure whether he’s going to laugh hysterically or just flat-out ejaculate prematurely. Neither would be very good, really, but he teeters on both for a maddening second. Jesus Christ, Cecil and his wonderful, smooth voice just said _cock_. 

Cecil licks up his erection and starts to give him a messy, eager blowjob. He can’t actually continue the dirty talking, what with Carlos’ dick on his tongue and all, but he moans throughout the whole thing and it’s deep and just so _wanton_ and Carlos can feel it all the way into his testicles. 

“You taste so good, Carlos… I can’t believe you’re letting me do this, this is amazing, I’m so happy,” Cecil says, and he slides Carlos back into his mouth and briefly Carlos can _feel_ those teeth scraping against his cock, ever so lightly but unmistakable, and it’s like a short-out in his mind and he can’t think anything for a moment. 

He runs a hand through Cecil’s hair, wonders if that might be rude, but Cecil moans loudly and Carlos supposes that means he likes it so he keeps it there, gently, feeling Cecil’s head bob. He looks down and watches him in the shadowy dark and Cecil glances up at him, a smile in his moonlight eyes.  
“I’m going to come,” Carlos gasps out in warning, and Cecil slips Carlos’ dick from his mouth and wraps those long fingers around it. 

Carlos orgasms, letting out some garbled noise as he does, Cecil’s hand pumping him through. Cecil moves up, kisses him on the temple, breathing heavily across his ear. “Perfect,” he says again. “Carlos. My Carlos.” He lets go of Carlos’ softening prick but stays where he is, hovering over Carlos, and it takes him a few beats to realize he has pulled his own dick out of his boxers and is frantically jerking off.

Carlos reaches in the dark, still reeling from orgasm and from this _actually happening_ , and covers Cecil’s hand with his own. Cecil moves his hand away and it’s Carlos now, fisting Cecil’s dick, and Cecil is gasping into his neck and arching his back.

“Yes, Carlos, touch me… oh, your hand feels so good on my cock, I’m going to come.” And Cecil just said cock again, and Carlos fails to hold back a giggle. It sounds a bit deranged. Very Night Vale of him, now that he thinks about it, and he’s not sure while he’s thinking about that at all because Cecil just let out the most beautiful cry and is ejaculating across Carlos’ belly in hot spurts and oh, oh yes. 

Cecil is panting, arms trembling with the effort to keep himself up. It doesn’t take long for him to collapse against Carlos’ side, face still pressed into Carlos’ neck, and they lay and breathe as the universe quietly arranges itself back to relative Night Vale normality around them. 

“I made a mess of you,” Cecil mumbles after a while.  
“You did. It’s okay though.”  
Cecil snorts a laugh into Carlos’ neck and rolls away to rummage in his nightstand, only to return with a package of tissues. He diligently starts to wipe Carlos clean, in the dark, and Carlos wonders if he can see in the dark with those amazing eyes of his. He wonders if Cecil would let him do a study. He thinks he might.

Cecil carelessly tosses the wadded up tissues over his shoulder to the floor, where they can wait until morning. He cuddles back close, pulling the sheets over them, and kisses Carlos in a way that Carlos can only describe as tender. 

“Was that good?” he asks, entirely too open, and Carlos laughs.  
“Yes. That was very good. That was amazing. I’m saying ‘amazing’ a lot. You have one hell of a dirty mouth on you though, you know that?”  
“Oh God. I’m so sorry. I get carried away, I can’t help it.”

Carlos can’t see it in the dark but knows Cecil is blushing. He really does think he loves him, so much he wonders how he ever managed without feeling this. Still, just another thing Carlos isn’t sure how to voice at all, so he holds him close and kisses his hair and thinks the cosmos might rip itself into jagged pieces right now and he would be okay with that, as long as he could have Cecil by his side. 

He wants to say that. He _should_ say that, even if it might be hard, because Cecil deserves to hear it. He looks at Cecil, prepares the words in his mind and tells himself to be brave, but realizes he’s already fallen asleep. That certainly didn’t take him long, and Carlos finds it entirely to endearing.

He smiles. “I have so many things I need to figure out how to say to you,” he whispers into Cecil’s hair. “You make me feel things that I’ve never felt for another person before. It’s stunning and scary and really great.” He presses a light kiss onto Cecil’s forehead, closes his eyes, and drifts off to sleep listening to Cecil’s even breathing.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Carlos sees when he wakes up is a happy pair of dark eyes. The second thing he sees is a brilliant smile full of teeth that are decidedly not sharp, and he really doesn’t understand the physics behind that one yet.

“Were you watching me sleep?” he rumbles.  
“Yes. Sorry. You’re so cute. Did you know you snore? So. Cute.” 

Carlos did know that, actually, and he also knows he can’t possibly be that cute laying there with his face half smooshed into the pillow. Cecil cuddles him, kisses his temple, the corner of his jaw, his earlobe, and is really very awake and Carlos can only wonder for how long, exactly, he was watching him sleep. 

“Did you sleep well? I did. I had a stunning nightmare about the void ripping into me and eviscerating me with a blade forged from my childhood traumas and I woke up in a cold sweat. It’s so nice to do that when there’s someone warm next to you snoring sweetly like life isn’t dark and horrible, I can’t even tell you. I’m so happy you’re here.”

Too much information to process that early in the day. Carlos closes his eyes, and Cecil runs his fingers down Carlos’ spine and back up again.

“You’re kind of fuzzy,” he coos.  
“Oh God, don’t mention that,” Carlos groans. “I hate it.”  
“Why? I think it’s cute. There’s nothing abnormal about a bit of body hair, Carlos. I have it.”

Carlos sighs and rolls to his side, hooking an arm around Cecil’s waist and pulling him in. “You have a handsome dash of chest hair and an adorable happy trail. I have dark hair all over my torso and between my shoulder blades. There’s a difference.”  
“I think it’s sexy,” Cecil says, sneaking an arm around to Carlos’ back again and trailing his fingers over the nub of Carlos’ spine. “Very masculine. I love it. I wish I had it too.”

Only Cecil would think that, Carlos supposes. At least two of his exes had insisted he waxed, which he eventually stopped doing because the waxing stuff gave him such awful rashes. He isn't sure what to do with a guy who actively expresses jealousy of it. “It’s much too early to be this confused,” he sighs.  
“I like a good spot of confusion, I find it helps keep an open mind. And really now Carlos, all those little things about yourself that you hate, I’m just going to love them extra to even things out.”

Equal parts creepy and romantic. He thinks he should have known dating in Night Vale would wind up under that label.

“Imperfections make perfect,” Cecil continues, in a tone of voice suggesting he’s not so much remaining on topic as he is composing one of those vaguely poetic soliloquies he does on the radio every so often. “Like chinks in a flawless diamond, they serve as little reminders that truly beautiful things are unique. A beauty mark on a fair face. A crooked tooth in a shining smile. Or my appendectomy scar, which I hope serves to enhance me rather than bring me down.”

“You have an appendectomy scar?”  
“Oh, yes.” Cecil points to a small, faded scar a few inches below his belly button. “I was eleven. My parents assumed I was merely possessed by a demon, of course, and then my appendix burst and I almost died. You can’t really blame them for that, such an easy mistake to make… but now a small imperfection on my otherwise perfect skin, reminding me of how easy it is to be betrayed by your own body.”

Carlos can only grin. “I have one too. See?” He, too, points, to a scar a few inches below his belly button. “I was fourteen. No near-death experience though, just… appendicitis.” 

Cecil looks flabbergasted for a moment, staring at the scar, then breaks into a delighted smile. “Carlos! You had your appendix removed too! We share scars! Oh, I can’t wait to tell my listeners about this, this is so romantic!”

It hits Carlos like a school bus full of squealing, overexcited bricks that odds are that Cecil will make this, all of this, public knowledge. The idea makes him immediately uncomfortable. While dating a radio host means giving up some of that privacy he’s always treasured, he doesn’t necessarily need Cecil to broadcast that they slept together.

“You’re not going to talk about the other stuff on the radio, are you?”  
“What, that you have a hairy back?”  
“No, well, that too, please don’t talk about that on the radio, but just... the whole thing.”

Cecil raises an eyebrow at him. Carlos didn’t even know he could do that, raise one eyebrow at a time, and gets butterflies looking at it. “Carlos, I think that the town does deserve to know there was an accident in your lab and that you’re okay.”

And there’s a good point. A lab incident would be a news-worthy occurrence in a small town like Night Vale, and he supposes depriving Cecil of reporting it would actually be a little cruel. “Can you tell them that without telling them about the sex?”  
“If I tell my listeners you spent the night, they’re going to draw that conclusion anyway.”  
“Then just let them draw the conclusion on their own without you painting them a detailed picture.”

“Okay. I get it, it’s okay. I won’t share details.”  
“Promise?”  
“I promise. Cross my heart, all that stuff.” 

He smiles, playfully crosses Cecil’s heart for him, and presses a kiss to the tip of his nose. Cecil makes the kind of sound Carlos hopes he never ever does on air, as he’s sure the pitch would damage most people’s speakers, and snuggles close.

His tattoos all seem relaxed, quietly dozing in what Carlos assumes are their rightful places. There’s a gorgeous kind of symmetry to them, now that they’ve all quieted down. He trails a finger down a spiral, winding up Cecil’s upper arm, and the tattoo shivers pleasantly. 

“Do you have plans for today?” Cecil asks.  
“Well, I’m going to have to look into getting my lab... inhabitable. Other than that, not so much.”  
“I can help, if you want? I don’t have to be at the station until the early afternoon today.”

Early afternoon. Carlos’ schedule is entirely his own, and even with his lab probably still stewing in whatever that green smoke was made of, it feels about a hundred miles away and he’s warm and comfortable in a bed he kind of never wants to leave. 

He kisses Cecil’s shoulder, up his neck, to the corner of his jaw now sporting endearing early morning stubble. He licks it, feeling the prickle of it on his tongue, and Cecil makes a soft noise and digs the fingers of one hand into Carlos’ shoulder. He’s already hard, Carlos can feel it against his hipbone, and he rolls his hips and Cecil lets out the most delightful, husky giggle. 

“Morning sex, nice,” he says, and Carlos laughs and rolls on top of him. Cecil accommodates him so easily, wrapping his legs around Carlos’ waist, arms around his shoulders, and Carlos kisses his collarbone and grinds them together and Cecil moans that moan again, the deep one that Carlos can feel travelling down his spine like a tiny, localized earthquake.

“Kiss me,” Cecil says.  
“I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”  
“I don’t care.”

So he kisses him, with such fervor he can’t even breathe. He thrusts them together, their dicks caught between their bodies, and Cecil meets him thrust for thrust and while Carlos had initially intended to go slow, lazy, just a relaxed spot of morning frottage, the whole things goes from tender to passionate very quickly and Cecil’s bed squeaks and groans in protest. 

Cecil breaks the kiss, turning his head to gasp for air. “Oh, Carlos! Yes, that’s perfect, that’s – oh, I love how your dick feels against mine, keep pushing us together like that, I’m going to come so hard.”  
“It’s much too early for me to handle you talking like that,” Carlos mutters into Cecil’s neck, and Cecil laughs. His laugh stutters on every thrust of Carlos’ hips, and it’s much too early for Carlos to handle that, too, but it’s a beautiful, honest sound and he hopes he’ll get to hear it often. 

Cecil’s tattoos have also woken up, undulating and rippling across Cecil’s skin. Carlos chases one with his tongue, surging up Cecil’s neck and down to his chest. He starts sucking on Cecil’s collarbone, knowing he’ll leave a hickey and hoping it’ll be nice and big. Cecil cries out, grabs a handful of Carlos’ hair with nothing even remotely resembling gentleness, and holds Carlos’ head where it is.

“Yes! Right there, please… just… oh my stars, Carlos, I’m going to – I’m going to come!”  
And he does exactly that, ejaculating hotly between the two of them while Carlos stifles a laugh against Cecil’s skin. He wants to stay in that moment, Cecil dazed from his orgasm underneath him, his hand still in Carlos’ hair, and Carlos giddy and laughing and _happy_. But Cecil is still pushing his hips up to meet each thrust, and they’re now slick and sticky and Carlos’ orgasm sneaks up on him and he clings to Cecil so tightly he can hear the little ‘oomph’ as he squeezes the air from Cecil’s precious lungs.

He lets himself go limp, collapsing on Cecil, who giggles and pets his back and presses kisses to his forehead.

“’Oh my stars’? Really?” Carlos mumbles.  
“Shut up. You can’t hold me accountable for stupid things I may say in the throes of passion.”  
Carlos chuckles and rolls off him, wiping an arm across his eyes. He’s sweaty, but satisfied, so that evens out nicely. Throes of passion, though. Good grief. 

“We need a shower,” Cecil points out with a touch of exasperation. “And breakfast. And probably to write a lengthy apology to my neighbors because I’m fairly certain they heard that just now.”

They look at each other, grinning, Cecil’s mouth once again full of sharp teeth and Carlos is starting to notice a pattern there he might want to write down somewhere. Form a nice hypothesis. Do some hands-on testing. The teeth, the moon-lit eyes, and there might be enough about Cecil alone to keep Carlos occupied and fascinated for the rest of his life.

They both turn at the same time and collide back into a perfect, open-mouthed, messy kiss. Showers and breakfast and neighbors be damned, they won’t be leaving this bed for at least another half hour. Such are the priorities of those young and in love, Carlos thinks, and he had best enjoy that while this crazy clusterfuck of a town lets him.

Eventually they do make it into the shower, and even manage to wash themselves without succumbing to the slippery business of shower sex. Might be the scorpions, who are now attempting to convey a sort of congratulations-on-getting-some. Carlos can appreciate the sentiment, but doesn’t necessarily feel like putting up a show for them. Cecil slips out first, wrapping a towel around his hair and announcing he’s going to make breakfast, leaving Carlos to feel entirely too lovey-dovey about using Cecil’s vanilla-scented shampoo to wash his hair with. 

When he steps out the bathroom in his boxers and flannel shirt, knowing his neatly combed curls will dry up into a poofy mess now that he has no access to his usual hair product, he finds Cecil in the kitchen frying them up a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs. He’s dressed in red corduroy pants and a white dress shirt, and wearing a bright orange apron that reads ‘Do Not Kiss The Cook, The Cook is Short Several Ingredients and May Have to Resort to Cannibalism’ on the front. 

He kisses the cook anyway, of course. For the corduroy, mostly, and for how he’s apparently done absolutely nothing with his hair other than towel it and it’s drying up in every which way. 

“There was a baby shark in one of the eggs. That’s odd, isn’t it?” Cecil says, turning back to his stove. “I mean, a baby chick, sure, I get those all the time, but a shark… it was dead though, unfortunately. Ah, just one of life’s small tragedies. I made your eggs sunny side up, that okay?”  
“Yes, that’s great. You found a baby shark in a chicken egg?”

Cecil nods, arranging the bacon and eggs on a plate with a battered-looking spatula.  
“Uh, what’d you do with it?” Carlos wants it. He really, absolutely, desperately wants the dead baby shark that was found in a chicken egg. For science. And because it’s deeply awesome.  
“I put it in the trash. Oh gosh, do you want it? To do science on? I’m sorry, I didn’t think it’d be of interest! Hold on, let me just…” 

He wants to tell Cecil he really doesn’t need to go rooting through his trash can for him, but he’s already up to his elbows in it and retrieves what is, indeed, a dead baby shark. A blacktip, from the looks of it, and Cecil carefully wraps it in some paper towel. He hesitates, then puts it in his fridge.

“I should keep it cool, I guess? What do you do with dead sharks?”  
“I’ll probably put it in a jar with some formaldehyde. After I run some tests on it, I guess. But the fridge is fine. I mean, let’s eat breakfast first, right.” 

He grins and wonders why it doesn’t bother him to eat eggs from a batch that, for reasons unknown, contained a baby shark. He wonders what the hell the bacon was made from. He wants to believe it’s pork, and he is very certain Cecil doesn’t even doubt that, but _a baby shark_. What the hell.

Cecil has the world’s smallest kitchen table, their knees bump together as they sit and Carlos’ elbow keeps slipping off, but the eggs are actually quite nice and Cecil keeps throwing him these quietly happy smiles, as if he’s internally pinching himself to make sure he’s not just dreaming about having breakfast with him. The morning desert sun crawls in bright streaks across Cecil’s floor as they eat and Carlos thinks this is truly one of the better mornings of his life, even with the lack of clean underwear and deceased marine animals in his breakfast. 

Cecil insists on cleaning up on his own, Carlos being his guest and all. Carlos finishes getting dressed, decides to just ignore whatever his hair is doing, and actually plays something of a friendly game of charades with the scorpions before Cecil is done. He’s taken two respirators from a chest beside his couch. When asked why he has respirators in a chest beside his couch Cecil merely rolls his eyes in mock-exasperation. “For when your broccoli explodes, for one.”

Carlos has absolutely no argument there. He is, however, wondering what else Cecil keeps in the chest. 

They step out into the hallway at the same time as one of Cecil’s neighbors, a middle-aged lady with an eye patch and a cane with an ancient-looking green stone on it. She has the weathered look of someone who once killed a man, and who’d do it again if necessary. 

Carlos thinks if the zombie apocalypse were to finally break out in Night Vale, he wants her on his team. He’s calculated the odds that it will, by the way, and they were so terrifyingly high that he ran the calculations twice before rushing to the convenience store to buy himself an axe. 

“Good morning Mrs. Macready, sorry about the noise earlier!” Cecil calls out as he pockets his keys.  
“That’s okay sweetheart, we’re all very happy for you,” she answers kindly, and Carlos feels mortifyingly embarrassed while he’s not sure he needs to be. Cecil isn’t, anyway, giving his neighbor an innocent smile as he hooks his arm around Carlos’ and guides him down the hallway. 

Carlos smiles politely if nervously at Mrs. Macready, and she gives him the fiercest stink eye he’s ever seen a one-eyed woman give. _Hurt that young man and I’ll kill you with my cane_ , is what that look says, and by God Carlos knows she’ll do it. He nearly trips over his own feet, remaining upright only by the grace of Cecil still holding him by his arm, and together they make their way out into a new Night Vale morning.

“Are you sure we can go inside?” Carlos says later as they are standing in front of his lab, looking up at his windows. All is still and dark inside, but he’s got a bad feeling he can’t shake.

“Please, Carlos, like this is the first time I’ve dealt with benevolent airborne spirits. My mom would let me handle that by myself when I was barely even nine years old.” He flicks the respirator onto his face with practiced ease, and gives Carlos a smile. Carlos can’t actually see his mouth, but the smile is in his eyes, the little crinkles at the corners of them, and Carlos sighs and follows suit.

His lab is quiet. At first Carlos thinks the smoke has gone somehow, vanished, until he notices the toxic-looking cloud hovering calmly just below his ceiling. Furthermore, everything is covered in a thin film of sickly green dust. His equipment, his surfaces, the floors. His laptop, too, and Carlos can only hope the stuff didn’t get inside of it somehow. 

“We’ll need gloves,” Cecil pipes in behind him. “And maybe an apron or some such.”  
“Hold on,” Carlos says.

As he opens his supply closet the cloud wakes up, slowly, lazily, like it’s Sunday morning and Carlos just presented it with coffee and a newspaper. It stretches, ripples, and Carlos could have sworn it yawned.

“Oh, dear,” Cecil says cheerfully, looking up at it as Carlos hands him a rubberized laboratory apron and a sturdy pair of chemical safety gloves. Cecil dutifully puts them on and stands there, looking not unlike he just stepped straight out of Half Life, and Carlos isn’t sure whether to be concerned or aroused. 

The first thing Cecil does is open a window. He unlatches it, peers over his shoulder, carefully pushes it open and does a near-perfect swan dive out the way as the vast majority of the smoke immediately pounces. It pushes its way out through the window and drifts, ever so eagerly up, until Carlos can no longer see it.

“That was seriously way too easy,” he comments.  
“Oh really? What do you think the green stuff on your surfaces is, mold? All we did was get the still incorporeal part out.”  
“I was hoping it was just dust.”  
“If dust could eat a small dog, maybe.”

Carlos looks around himself, feelingly mildly overwhelmed, then does the only thing he can think of to do in a situation like this - he grabs a couple of Petri dishes from his supply closet, the inside of it thankfully green dust free, and takes more samples than he probably really needs. Just in case. You never knew.

“What was in this cage?” Cecil asks from across the room.  
“Cage? What ca- oh.” He rushes over and stares sadly into the, indeed, empty cage. “My mice. My mice are gone. The door isn’t even unlatched, how the hell did they get out?”  
“They probably didn’t, poor little things. Why did you have mice, though?” 

Carlos fidgets with the latch, feels immensely grateful for getting out of there when he did last night, and sighs. “Science isn’t always very politically correct, Cecil.”  
“Oh. Oh, I see.”  
“Sorry.”

Cecil looks uncomfortable, standing a little greenish in his science get-up. Carlos thinks he might regret that white dress shirt later. He does look oddly adorable in it, though, just enough of an odd duck in his usual eccentric garb paired with the lab equipment.

“You look cute in a gas mask,” Carlos quips.  
“Everybody looks cute in a gas mask. It adds a touch of vulnerability.”

Carlos snorts out a laugh, which is a bit of an odd thing to do while wearing a respirator, and Cecil looks confused. Not intended as a joke, then, but still funny. He taps Cecil playfully on the elbow, and they get to work. 

Work involves mostly buckets, mops, and little clouds of dust rising indignantly around his gloved hands as he wipes down counter tops and sinks. It doesn’t as much wipe off as wake up and drift away, and Cecil spends an admirable amount of time chasing little puffs of smoke around with a feather duster and sternly telling them to pop out the window already, occasionally in a language Carlos doesn’t think is actually recognized by any national authorities as real. 

It’s nearly lunch time when Carlos announces a break. He carefully opens the door to what used to be the break room, but which he’s has been using as his impromptu living space for the past two months or so. There’s not much to it, a couch, a table, a small bathroom to the left, but he can see the sun set from the large window in the back and it’s nice to be so close to his work anyway.

He’s forgotten how messy it is, though, especially compared to the stark order he keeps his lab in. There’s empty take-out cartons on the table, piles of notebooks on the floor by the couch, and the stretcher he’s put in there to sleep on is unmade. It’s not covered in green gunk, however, which is a plus, and Cecil closes the door behind them and is only accompanied by a few little plumes of dust that settle inconspicuously on the microwave. The absence of the stuff means they can remove the respirators for now, and Carlos rubs his face gratefully. 

“You live here?” Cecil asks.  
“Yes. I stayed in a motel at first, but I was here all the time anyway. After falling asleep on the couch for what must have been about the twentieth time I figured I could put the money wasted on the motel to better use in my research, and just sort of moved in here. It’s not very glamorous, but it suits its purpose. And it’s larger than the motel room was, anyway.” 

Cecil looks positively enchanted, which Carlos thinks is a bit of a disproportionate reaction. The place is practical, but about as charming as a pack of rats. He almost immediately gravitates towards the wall, where Carlos has put up a large, hand-drawn map.

“This is Night Vale,” Cecil says. He sounds awe-struck. Carlos supposes he ought to be – he spent days working on that thing, after all.  
“Yes.”  
“Did you draw it yourself?”

“Yes. I bought a map at first, but it was really inaccurate. Entire sections were blacked out or replaced with green squares labeled ‘innocuous recreational area’, so eventually I just got a big piece of paper and drew one myself. They outlawed writing utensils not even a week after I finished.” He’s wondered before if the two are connected. Wouldn’t surprise him if they were, and he’s been waiting for the day he comes home to find either the map missing or his entire lab burnt to the ground. 

“It’s amazing. So accurate.” Cecil touches the map, carefully, with just the tips of his fingers. He traces a street, guides his fingers around a corner, and Carlos realizes it’s his own street he’s touching.  
“Thank you,” is all he knows how to say, and Cecil turns to him.

“It’s so nice to think you spent so much energy on getting to know my town.”  
“It’s an incredible place.”

“Oh, now you’re just being entirely too flattering.” He says it as if Carlos’ compliment to the town was a compliment to him personally. It wouldn’t surprise Carlos if he took it that way. The Voice of Night Vale, after all, and sometimes it’s almost as if there’s no real way to tell where the town ends and the man begins. 

“Your hair is all floofy, by the way,” Cecil says, effectively changing the subject with a pointed finger.  
“Yeah, I know. This is what my, uh, perfect hair does when I just let it dry without putting stuff in it.” _Floofy_ , though.  
Cecil smiles slowly, like a sunrise on his face, just a glimmer at first and then all bright and warm. “I kind of really want to run my hands through it. Damn these gloves. _Carlos._ ” 

There’s something about the way Cecil says his name that makes it sound like an entire story. A different story each time, too, which is fascinating. Carlos would consider it a talent, though sometimes he can’t quite follow what Cecil is trying to convey and it just gets confusing.

He gets it now, though. Loud and clear, the thousands of little inflections Cecil managed to squish into just two perfectly pronounced syllables. 

He steps up to him, and slowly removes Cecil’s gloves for him. He sets them aside, turns to Cecil, cocking his head and smiling in a way he hopes makes him look smooth. Cecil’s cheekbones go pink and he steps close. They stand, belly to belly, their aprons squeaking together, as Cecil lovingly threads his fingers into Carlos’ hair.

“You want to eat some lunch?” Carlos asks. Cecil nods, leans in to kiss him, once, twice. “I have like a year’s supply of Cup Noodles, if you want. Not very haute cuisine of me, but-“ Carlos continues, but Cecil kisses him again, a third time, nipping the words right off his lips. “Or maybe later,” Carlos mumbles, reaching around to fiddle with the ties on Cecil’s apron. “Later is good.” 

Cecil grins against his mouth, and Carlos sticks his tongue out to feel the sharp points of Cecil’s teeth. Yes, definitely a pattern. An odd one, but a pattern none the less.

The teeth are still there a little later, when Cecil is slumped on the couch and Carlos is sitting on his knees in front of him with Cecil’s dick in his mouth. He has two fingers up Cecil’s ass and is sliding them in and out in a steady rhythm, and Cecil has his eyes shut and his mouth open and is saying delightfully vulgar things to him.

“Carlos, yes, right there, suck me harder, yes, that’s, oh, your fingers, you’re driving me crazy, fuck me with your fingers, please, it feels so good, Carlos, please.”

Carlos is all too happy to oblige. Cecil’s pants are halfway across the room but he’s still wearing his shirt, and one of his feet is planted firmly on Carlos’ shoulder. Carlos can’t work out why that somehow makes this better but it does. Cecil’s socks are argyle. Ugly argyle, even, in colors that couldn’t complement each other less if they tried. It’s all quite wonderful and Carlos doesn’t think he’s ever sucked anyone off this lovingly before. 

Carlos comes first, too. He can’t help it. He’s just so intensely turned on by this, by Cecil pushing himself down into his fingers, struggling to keep himself from thrusting up into his mouth, saying those things without probably even realizing he’s saying them at all. Carlos jerks himself off with his free hand and ejaculates messily across the linoleum, well before Cecil cries out and stiffens and sends jets of semen down Carlos’ tongue. 

Carlos sits back and observes Cecil for a moment, now hanging dazed on his couch. He takes his time coming back to earth, and gives Carlos a sated, languid smile as he does.

“Want me to return the favor?” he says.  
“No, no need, I already finished.”  
“Really?”  
Carlos nods and shrugs. “Yeah. You were being kind of incredible, so I helped myself.”

Cecil snorts out a laugh, and holds his arms out to Carlos. “Get over here, silly.”  
Again, Carlos is too happy to oblige. They wind up sprawled on the sofa, back to front, Cecil nuzzling his ear and wrapping both arms tightly around Carlos’ chest. They lay like that for a while, warm, close, and Carlos tries not to think about the toxic green stuff probably still prancing about in the next room.

Just focus on the here, he thinks. The couch, Cecil, Cecil’s bare legs, Cecil’s nose under his earlobe. This is nice. Safe, even with a fairly serious hazard only a few feet away. It’s the same feeling he felt the night before, where the Earth’s crust might tear open and suck the whole town into a fiery, lava-covered death, and he wouldn’t care as long as the last thing he could feel was Cecil’s heartbeat against his shoulder blades and Cecil’s breath in the crook of his neck. 

It’s an intense thing to feel, and he can hardly breathe around how big it is in his chest. Again he wants to voice it, now that Cecil is awake and alert and holding him so close he might as well be trying to absorb him into his very cells. He can’t, though, but needs to say _something_ before he does something rash, like spontaneously combust. 

This is Night Vale, after all. He’s pretty sure it would happen.

“Cecil?” he says. “Tell me about your teeth?”  
“What about my teeth?” Cecil says, but he’s being purposefully evasive. Carlos can tell because of Cecil’s sideways smirk Carlos catches from the corner of his eye that is, indeed, very full of the kind of teeth you don’t usually find on cute radio hosts. 

“You know what I mean.”  
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s not uncommon? Runs in the family, my grandma had them too, and my uncle Copernicus. They started doing it after I lost my baby teeth. My orthodontist really hated me, let me tell you.”

Carlos gets a perfect, clear mental picture of a little Cecil, maybe thirteen years old, already grey-haired, with braces on his pointy teeth. He wonders if he had his unique sense of dress then. He wonders lots of things, and yearns for photo albums and old family videos. 

“And they show up when you’re… aroused?”  
Cecil giggles. “Not really. Mostly when I’m angry, or being naughty. My mum would always be able to tell whenever I was up to something because of it. I guess sex counts as shenanigans.”

Teeth that change with Cecil’s mood. Carlos tries to make sense of that, aching to see how it worked, ponders if Cecil’s orthodontist would have x-rays on file somewhere and if he would let him see them.

“You’re amazing,” he just says again, and Cecil presses his face into his neck and giggles quietly. Carlos wonders if people have ever complimented him like that before. He hopes they have. He hopes they haven’t. He turns and kisses Cecil on the nose.

“I really like being in your space,” Cecil says and sighs happily. Carlos doesn’t know if he means that literally or figuratively. “You mentioned Cup Noodles, though?“ 

Carlos loves the Cup Noodles he can buy in Night Vale. He’s been thriving on the stuff since college, but Night Vale has flavors he’s never seen anywhere else. He still enjoys the traditional chicken and shrimp, but he’s also developed quite a liking for Creamy Alligator, Salsa Picante Chocolate Mousse, and, worryingly, Lost Pet Vegetable. He goes for an average Spicy Chicken this time, though Cecil chooses Pickled Tarantula without as much as blinking.

They eat, Cecil puts his pants back on, they dither in the break room giggling at each other like schoolboys over virtually nothing, and then the respirators go back on. They shuffle back into the laboratory where the dust has defiantly spelled the words ‘We Herd You Having The Sex’ on Carlos’ whiteboard. He ignores the appalling grammar and simply wipes the words off, only to watch them form again across the floor in front of his fridge. 

Cecil laughs, swipes at them with his feather duster, and chases them out the open window. 

They continue cleaning for a while, Carlos all too aware of Cecil having to leave for work in about an hour. There is no way they can finish this today, and he’s oddly okay with it.

“We won’t finish this today,” Cecil says, and Carlos wonders sharply if Cecil has any telepathic ability to go with those otherworldly teeth and eyes. “Although we should be able to finish this tomorrow. You could be back in here by Thursday.”

“Good. I mean, that’s good news.”  
“I have to work until about eight, so I’ll see you after that, yeah? Assuming you’ll, uh, want to stay at my place again. Sorry. Do you want to spend another night with me?”  
“If you’d let me.”

“Oh, yes.” Okay, so Carlos would have been surprised if the answer would have been no, but he still likes the confirmation. People are hard to read, and that applies even to Cecil who wears his feelings like one of those scrolling neon signs around his neck. Carlos can’t always tell if he’s sincere, even if he probably simply needs to accept that, yes, Cecil is _always_ sincere. 

Cecil, meanwhile, has pulled his keys from his pocket and is tugging one of them off the key ring. It’s no easy feat, still wearing safety gloves, and his face is a mask of utter focus behind his respirator. He succeeds, and presses a key into Carlos’ equally gloved hand.

“My house key. I should be home around eight, so you can just let yourself in and make yourself at home.”  
The key to his apartment. They’ve spent one night together, and Cecil has already given him they key to his apartment. There’s a brief moment of panic, but it drowns in a veritable flood of overexcited endorphins. 

“I’ll wait for you,” he manages to say. “With dinner? We could eat together.”  
“I can bring home take-out, if you like? I haven’t had my weekly Rico’s Pizza yet, have you?”  
Carlos shakes his head, and Cecil gives him a beatific smile that somehow manages to be the most frightening thing Carlos has ever seen. “So we’ll get pizza! Remember, no one does a slice like Big Rico.”

Like Carlos could forget. Cecil takes the apron and the gloves off and sighs, respirator still on his face. Carlos wishes the things weren’t still necessary, because he fairly desperately wants to plant a huge, wet kiss on Cecil’s wonderful mouth. 

“Okay, so I’ll see you later, please don’t stay in here on your own too long, and if the dust decides to gang up on you… well, I’d advise jumping out the window, just make sure you think light thoughts and remember to roll upon hitting the ground.” 

Cecil steps close, pushes the respirator down his face, puts a hand on the back of Carlos’ head, and presses a lingering kiss to his forehead. His fingers draw a small circle in Carlos’ hair, just briefly, before he steps back and looks like he’d rather have stayed right where he was, a hand in Carlos’ hair and his lips on his forehead. Carlos kind of wishes the same.

“I look forward to coming home to you tonight,” Cecil says, almost bashful, and then he’s gone, down the dark flight of stairs to the front door. Carlos hurries to his window, watches him get into his car and drive off, and feels weirdly like he’s taken a part of him with him. A limb, maybe, or a lung. One of the important parts, anyway, and he silently chides himself for being silly because, for Christ’s sake, he’ll be seeing him again in seven hours or so.

He doesn’t stay in the lab for too long at all. The dust does seem to be plotting a coup, gathering up and hovering a few feet behind him, and he really doesn’t feel like jumping from a second story window to his safety. He collects some of his things – a change of underwear, for one, and a halfway decent shirt to sleep in – and stuffs his laptop in his backpack, hoping any possible traces of the green dust wouldn’t do any harm in there.

He turns before he leaves, observes his lab, now already much less green than when they arrived in the morning, and throws a stern look to the cloud of dust pulsating innocently by the microscope. “I’ll be back bright and early tomorrow morning. So you behave yourself now, you hear me?” 

He probably only images the cloud to be nodding, but it’s close enough. He leaves, and once outside in the hot Night Vale afternoon takes his respirator off and breathes deeply.

He wonders how he managed to get used to things like this. He wonders about growing up here and not knowing any better too, but he mostly wonders about living a normal, boring, questioning life for nearly thirty years and then managing to find actual fulfillment and happiness in a place that explains nothing but accepts everything. 

He wonders about love and meant-to-be as well, as he walks home and every footstep that echoes off the pavement seems to sing Cecil’s name. So much to wonder about, and he feels young and full of possibilities for reasons he can’t quite put his fingers on.

“Everyone feels that way when they’re in love, son,” a gorgeous little cardinal says to him, and he’s not even shocked to encounter a bird that isn’t only able to speak, but also seems to be reading his mind. It hops back and forth, chirps awkwardly, looks entirely too embarrassed to have gotten caught talking to him, and flies off. 

Carlos watches it go, until there is one quiet gunshot from his left and the bird drops to the pavement. Startled, Carlos turns and sees a member of the secret police putting his gun back in his holster and shrugging.

“Was he right, though?” Carlos asks.  
“What do you mean?” the officer says, voice distorted through his mask.  
“About the love thing.”  
“I don’t know, sir, I just work for the Sherriff.” 

Carlos watches him leave, thinks that if the bird is right it’s a miracle anyone gets any work done at all, and continues on his way to Cecil’s apartment. He gets there without any further incidents, which is, to be honest, a rare occasion in Night Vale indeed.

It’s weird to let himself into Cecil’s apartment. The place is different without him in it, hollowed out, and Carlos feels like an intruder. He holds Cecil’s key tightly, the edges pressing into his palm, and reminds himself Cecil wanted him here. He kicks his shoes off, leaves his backpack by the couch, and wanders back and forth for a little while until he starts feeling more like this is where he’s supposed to be right now. 

He spends some time in the kitchen with the baby shark Cecil found that morning. He takes some tissue samples, thoroughly checks the whole thing for anomalies, but it appears to be an absolutely normal shark. Save for the fact, obviously, that it was discovered in a chicken’s egg purchased from the local Ralph’s. 

Carlos plans to do some DNA tests once his lab is up and running again, but fully expects to not find any aberrations. It’s just a shark, and he’ll probably never be able to explain how it wound up in an egg. 

He places the shark in a jar, puts in the appropriate amount of formaldehyde which he took with him from the lab, and can only hope Cecil won’t mind him doing scientific experiments in his kitchen. Carlos cleans up thoroughly, anyway, and something tells him Cecil might actually wind up feeling honored that Carlos chose to do some work right there. 

Of course now Carlos is thinking about Cecil again, and he’s standing in Cecil’s kitchen, and he notices Cecil’s kitchen timer is shaped like a little penguin and he’s hit with a veritable tidal wave of affection. It’s so _normal_ , as far as quirky details go, that it looks like it doesn’t belong in Night Vale at all but it exists there because Cecil exists and that thought is all that Carlos’ universe is comprised of for a moment.

Carlos sighs, wonders if this is what Cecil feels when Cecil thinks of him, and that makes him entirely too self-conscious. He loves Cecil. He loves him in a way that makes something like a plastic penguin timer important, and he’s never done that, and the confession burns on his tongue like coffee from the gas station. He walks into the living room, sinks down onto the couch, remembers making out there with Cecil the night before and just falls right back into that universe with nothing but Cecil in it. 

He winds up slumped on that couch for entirely too long, soul-searching for an answer he already knows, and once he realizes Cecil’s show is about to start spends ten minutes frantically running around the apartment looking for a radio. He knows it’s silly to fret about missing the show, about not getting to hear Cecil’s voice when Cecil will, in all likelihood, be in bed with him the entire night, but he damn near panics. 

Cecil is a radio host, surely he _has_ to have a functioning radio somewhere, but Carlos can’t find it and he’s about to give up and burst out the apartment looking for the first available public place listening to NVCR , when he spots a small transistor radio on the top of Cecil’s fridge.

Good enough. He flicks it on, finds it already tuned perfectly to the right channel, and listens to a foreign voice talking about the proper way to teach your children to handle a crossbow for a while. 

Carlos hopes it’s prerecorded, because whatever is talking is so obviously not human that he really doesn’t want to think about Cecil being in the same building as that thing right now. It sounds like it has more than one tongue, and definitely too many teeth, and when it makes a joke and laughs at itself a glass sitting in Cecil’s sink spontaneously cracks into two. 

The broadcast cuts off abruptly, and is replaced by a few seconds of ringing silence until there it is – Cecil’s deep voice, speaking a few ominous words before the intro music hits. Carlos smiles like it’s Christmas morning, sitting down at Cecil’s kitchen table with the radio in front of him. 

As Cecil speaks Carlos pictures him, in his red corduroy pants and white shirt, surrounded by ancient studio equipment, massive headphones on. He wonders if the teeth come out when he’s talking about something that winds him up. He gets so preoccupied picturing him like that, in his dark recording booth, he misses a large chunk of the broadcast and is only pulled back in when Cecil, as he’d said he would, starts to report on the incident in his lab.

“Last night a small explosion occurred in the lab next to Big Rico’s Pizza. You know, Carlos’ lab. No fear, Carlos is fine, and we spent some quality time together cleaning up the toxic mess today… but listeners, guess who he turned to in his time of need and temporary homelessness? Me! Oh, it was wonderful. It was amazing. I promised him I wouldn’t go into too much details, although I’m sure you can all fill in the blanks, huh, listeners, but it was _magical_.  
And get this – we both have appendectomy scars. I had mine removed when I was eleven, and he his when he was fourteen… and now we have matching scars! Oh, it’s like destiny, like our bodies telling us we belonged together before our crazy haphazard universe even threw us onto each other’s paths.  
Listeners, I hope you know this feeling some day. This feeling of loving someone who is so different from you, but with whom you still fit together perfectly. _Perfectly_. I’m so in love, Night Vale, so _very_ in love.”

Carlos puts both hands on the radio as Cecil seamlessly moves onto traffic, and caresses the small speakers with his thumbs. He doesn’t even care that the whole town now knows they slept together, or that he has an appendectomy scar, or that Cecil apparently considered cleaning up his lab ‘quality time’.

Cecil just said he loved him, and he said it on air, and it’s hardly the first time but it feels like it’s the first time that really counts. It hits him like it does, anyway, sends a feeling like laughing and crying all at once through his veins, and there’s only one response to it he can think of.

“I love you too, Cecil,” he says loudly, smiling. There. He’s said it. Out loud, and perhaps into an empty room with no one to hear him but the Sherriff’s secret police, but it’s a start. It’s opening a door. After all, if he can say it out loud to himself, he knows he’ll be able to say it out loud to Cecil.

He sits back, and thinks he can’t wait for Cecil to come home tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has gotten a somewhat unrelated sequel (as in, it takes place in more or less the same universe, with the same headcanons for Cecil’s appearance and Night Vale, but isn’t necessarily a _direct_ sequel) which can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/999097/chapters/1978025). Let me warn you now, though - it’s an exceedingly bewildering mpreg story (Carlos has just given up on ever being able to make sense of his life in any way, ever again)


End file.
